Corporate News

General Magnaplate has developed a range of metal coatings designed to increase the performance and lifespan of food processing equipment by adding hardness to the parts to protect them against wear, abrasion, corrosion, friction and galling. Recently, the Company also received certification from NSF for its revised standard for food equipment materials used in food service equipment, 'NSF 51'.

Magnaplate's TUFRAM coating combines the hardness of aluminum oxide ceramic with the properties of selected proprietary polymers, providing aluminum parts with new levels of hardness, wear and corrosion resistance, and permanent lubricity. The hardness of the coatings ensures minimal production downtime for food processing equipment, while the lubricity makes equipment easier to clean and assures efficient mold release in appropriate food applications.

Another one of Magnaplate's coatings range, NEDOX, increases the performance of all types of metals, including aluminum. NEDOX, a multi-step proprietary process, permanently combines the advantages of hard coat plating with the controlled infusion of low-friction polymers and dry lubricants. Food processing engineers can boost performance while reducing cost by substituting NEDOX-coated low cost ferrous and non-ferrous alloys for more expensive metals.

Molding Technology Slashes Processing Time and Costs

A breakthrough development by General Magnaplate Corporation in layup-molding technology promises to deliver considerable time reductions and cost savings for fabricators of parts constructed from composite materials.

Edmund V. Aversenti, General Magnaplate's Chief Operating Officer, reports that his company's CMPT® process reduces the total time needed to make large all-metal lay-up molds for complex reinforced composites from the current six-to-twelve month period to as little as six weeks, while also slashing tooling capital investment by one-third.

Says Aversenti, "Tools manufactured by General Magnaplate with the CMPT process reproduce fine pattern detail, with dimensionally stability, and the process is consistent with traditional EDM finished tooling. CMPT represents a quantum leap in the composite fabrication industry, making it possible to drastically lower the final cost for many molded, complex-shaped parts, especially those with contours. Such contoured composite parts are used in applications as diverse as Stealth bombers and refrigerator doors."

CMPT is a dense, multi-directional, all-metal-weaving process which eliminates the need to machine layup-molds out of large, heavy metal ingots or castings that require so much time to fabricate. It combines the accuracy, precision, and good surface quality previously available only after machining. It enables high-temperature tooling for long or short production runs for cures up to 750° F. The toolface can be made from any alloy, from aluminum to zinc, including high nickel INVAR.

Aversenti continues, "Depending on the size of the tool face (Magnaplate currently has the capacity to make tool faces up to 12-feet square) this robotically controlled process can take from a few hours to several days. When completed, the tool face is ready for use after being positioned on a flex-contour holding table for stability."

"The shorter lead times lower costs of CMPT will permit more frequent model changes by larger companies as they quickly adjust designs to consumer tastes. A customized tool-leasing program being developed allows smaller companies to board the "composite express" by manufacturing and selling complex shapes without making major capital investments and without long lead times between concepts and salable products."

All five General Magnaplate plants - Linden NJ, Arlington TX, Ventura CA, and Ajax, Ontario are already capable of creating toolfaces with the CMPT process. Magnaplate has licensees in Sweden, The Netherlands, the UK, and Germany.

Last December, General Magnaplate’s employees collected much-needed items for our troops and sent them to the 576th Engineer Company at Shindand Airbase in Afghanistan. The Company was so grateful for the care package they received and for being remembered during the holidays that they sent us a certificate of appreciation, signed by their First Sergeant and Commanding Officer. General Magnaplate is proud to support our troops and has already decided to tie in our annual Earth Day celebration later this month with another care package for them in remembrance of Memorial Day. We are asking our employees to bring in supermarket plastic bags for recycling, and for each employee that contributes, we will set aside money to purchase items for our soldiers. Look for a future post for more details.

If you need coefficient of friction values for your engineering calculations, General Magnaplate’s New Friction Calculator can help. Available for both iPhones and Android devices, the new app provides static and dynamic coefficients of friction (COF) for more than 200 pairings of commonly used materials and engineered coatings. Friction Calculator’s materials database is continually updated with new materials and coatings.

Other features include a Surface Engineering Resources section offering information on understanding coefficient of friction, surface roughness, calculating corrosion rates, wear mechanisms and thread tolerances. In addition, the Friction Engineering Help area enables users to easily contact General Magnaplate’s technical service department to ask for help with your surface enhancement problems.

Search iTunes or Google Play to download the version for your device. A web version of the app for desktop use is available at: www.frictioncalculator.com

General Magnaplate Texas recently increased its NEDOX® capacity to better service our customers. We can process parts up to 20 feet in length, up to 3.5 tons and up to 25 inches in diameter in the longest tanks in the south and southwest USA. We can also provide our customers with electroless nickel plating utilizing these larger processing tanks. Parts such as a 6" diameter x 15’ long extruder shaft used to move PPE in the petrochemical industry, and a 15’ long rotor used down-hole for the oil and gas industry can now be coated at our Arlington, Texas facility.

General Magnaplate proudly celebrated its 60th anniversary at three separate locations this year: the USS Intrepid Museum in NY, the Texas Rangers ballpark in Arlington, TX and at the Squashed Grapes Winery in California.

USS INTREPID MUSEUM

The celebration at the USS Intrepid was particularly apt because of General Magnaplate’s long history of working on defense applications. The USS Intrepid also known as The Fighting “I”, is one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers built during World War II for the United States Navy. She is the fourth US Navy ship to bear the name. Commissioned in August 1943, Intrepid participated in several campaigns in the Pacific Theater of Operations, most notably the Battle of Leyte Gulf. The carrier was used to recover Mercury and Gemini astronauts during the 1960’s when they splashed down into ocean after Earth orbit during the early days of America’s space program. The entire staff from the New Jersey plant visited the great aircraft carrier and were also able to see the Enterprise space shuttle which is on display at the Intrepid.

TEXAS RANGERS BALLPARK

Texas celebrated the 60th anniversary with America’s favorite pasttime at the Texas Rangers ballpark in Arlington. They really hit it out of the park that night!

SQUASHED GRAPES WINERY

The California plant celebrated the anniversary in style at one of the State’s premier wineries. Magnaplate’s coatings are used in bottling and labeling lines around the world, always nice to sample some of the product too!

The installation of solar panels on the roof of General Magnaplate’s Ventura, California facility has helped us become even more ‘green’. Electrical consumption has been cut by 55-100% depending on the month of the year and available daylight. In addition, energy from the panels being fed back into the grid on weekends as well as before and after working hours has enabled the Ventura plant to be billed at about a 55% lower rate. This will provide several thousand dollars in savings each year for the facility and help the environment at the same time.

General Magnaplate is proudly celebrating its 60th Anniversary this year and the timing could not be better as it coincides with the successful launch of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule. Dr. Charles P. Covino, affectionately known as “Doc”, established the company in 1952 and the rest, as they say is history. Candi Aversenti, CEO of General Magnaplate, comments, “We are extremely proud to be celebrating sixty years in business, but more so we are proud to celebrate sixty years of serving our customers, sixty years of improving the quality of our customers’ products, and sixty years of contributing to some of mankind’s most valuable products and endeavors, including the NASA space program. General Magnaplate has a long history in the U.S. space program and the Company’s coatings have been utilized by NASA for coating mission-critical parts on virtually every vehicle sent into space.” “With such a strong aerospace background, General Magnaplate’s coatings were a natural choice” adds Candi Aversenti. “Our coatings have been engineered to withstand the harshest of environments, and for 60 years they have proven their ability to perform in mission-critical situations such as space flight.”

SpaceX holds a $1.6 billion contract with NASA to fly 12 unmanned supply missions to the space station, and the Dragon is the first privately developed spacecraft to visit the International Space Station. Dragon is not only the first privately developed spacecraft to successfully return from Earth orbit, but it is also the only reusable spacecraft in operation today. Aversenti continues, “We understand that space travel is one of the most exciting yet most difficult of all human endeavors. General Magnaplate is constantly innovating and developing new coating technologies and are proud that our coatings are playing a part in the dawn of a new age of space travel. This is another momentous step in the 60 year history of our company.”

General Magnaplate’s staff, customers and vendors would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Candi Aversenti, CEO of General Magnaplate, on her 30 years of service at the Company and also to mark the celebration of her 60th birthday! Dr. Covino established General Magnaplate the year that Candi was born. After joining the company in 1982, she took over the reins from her father as CEO in 1999. Dr. Covino sadly left us in 2007 at the age of 82 but his spirit of invention and pushing the boundaries of coatings technology remains strong at the Company.